If Daniel Andrews is struggling, it is his own fault

Illustration: Tom Jellett

Daniel Andrews has a bad habit of shirking responsibility. The Labor Premier was all front as he introduced a COVID-19 curfew in the green-left heartland of Australia.

He shows no remorse for what he and his team of incompetent ministers have done. Instead, he speaks of collective responsibility.

There is no public apology for the fresh outbreak of COVID-19 in Victoria. There is no admission of error for the Labor government’s hotel quarantine disaster, its failure to conduct rigorous testing or its rejection of federal help that could have prevented the pandemic’s resurgence.

The arrogance of Andrews and his team has resulted in preventable deaths, the destruction of Australian businesses and billions more in debt.

All of Australia will pay for Labor’s failure in Victoria, but many Victorians seem reluctant to hold their government accountable. A July Newspoll indicated that 61 per cent were satisfied with Andrews’s handling of the coronavirus. While his personal satisfaction rating took a tumble, it was still 57 per cent. It is an extraordinary result given the Victorian government’s plain negligence. It is more extraordinary still that the Liberal opposition is failing to provide a viable alternative to the disastrous Labor team.

The known origin of the latest outbreak was the state’s hotel quarantine disaster. Last week, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said aged-care residents represented about 7 per cent of cases in Victoria diagnosed since July 1 and they were a consequence of the hotel quarantine major outbreak. As reported in The Australian last Wednesday, most if not all of the cases are genomically linked to failures in the Andrews government scheme.

On Thursday, Victoria broke another grim record with 723 COVID-19 cases confirmed and 13 deaths, 10 connected to aged-care. Andrews has presided over a health catastrophe, but sorry seems to be the hardest word. He is blame-shifting instead of acknowledging his responsibility in mismanaging the crisis.

Last Tuesday, as the second wave of the virus spread through aged-care centres, more than 769 patients and staff tested positive. Amid the rising toll, Andrews told reporters: “I would not let my mum be in some of these places. I just wouldn’t.” The Premier’s musing reflects his government’s immaturity. In a bid to revise the reality about how COVID-19 took hold in Victoria’s aged-care homes, Andrews threw a coward’s punch. He preened his image as a dutiful son without considering the effect on families whose loved ones were dying in care.

In Victoria, the vast majority of aged-care homes where COVID-19 has broken out are funded by the commonwealth.

Andrews has used the fact to score partisan political points. No one wants to see elderly people suffering at the hands of unscrupulous aged-care providers and the pandemic is shining a light on the sector.

The federal government has serious questions to answer, including why the staff to patient ratio is so low in some commonwealth-funded homes and why the personal protection training for virus prevention was not made mandatory.

Several risk factors converged to cause Victoria’s recent outbreak. The first was the bungled hotel quarantine scheme under the Andrews government’s control.

To recall the before picture, consider the mid-year state of affairs. On June 17, the ABC reported that Victoria had recorded its largest increase in COVID-19 cases in more than a month. There were 21 cases including a nursing home resident, a case linked to staff at an animal hospital, and an additional case in the Monash Health cluster. The largest group comprised 15 cases in hotel quarantine as well as a contractor working at one of them.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

The extent of Labor’s responsibility for today’s COVID-19 outbreak was laid bare last month after genomic testing revealed community transmission had stemmed from the government’s hotel quarantine operation. It is conceivable that all of the community transmission cases in early July could be traced to it.

The Age reported that at least five government agencies were jointly responsible for the quarantine operation. Within 24 hours of its start on March 28, an email was sent to senior bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services asking urgently for a 24-hour police presence at the hotels.

From the first day, it was clear that private security guards were not able to effectively maintain the quarantine. When questioned about the leaked emails, the Premier’s office would not provide an explanation. Instead, a spokeswoman gave the same sorry excuse for government secrecy, namely a closed-door inquiry it has established.

Unless new information comes to light, the Andrews government must be made accountable for overseeing a public health disaster. It rejected the Morrison government’s offer of personnel to manage hotel quarantine. Instead, the Labor team selected contractors, a decision that led to the resurgence of the virus after subcontracted security staff spread it from the hotels to the community. Why did the Victorian government neglect to enforce a proper standard of care? If it could not manage the quarantine program, why did it refuse commonwealth assistance?

Andrews says he is not confident private nursing homes can provide the quality of care needed to keep people safe from COVID-19. The statement should be directed at aged-care homes implicated in horrendous mistreatment of the elderly, not the entire sector. Many Australians have lost confidence in the Victorian government. Andrews neglected to act after federal Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy asked him to suspend elective surgeries in Victoria so that nursing home patients could receive hospital care. The Prime Minister had to intervene after Andrews did not take timely action. It took almost a week for him to announce suspension of elective surgeries.

It was inevitable that elderly people would shoulder the burden of COVID-19, but only if it was unleashed in the community before an effective treatment had been developed. Timing was everything and the Victorian government blew it.